Sunday, Mar. 21 George and Van on a motor trip to the Tully Falls with George Brooks and family. A round trip of 250 miles, via Kuranda and the Palmerston Highway. Visited a fruit bat camp near Atherton, only to find it deserted. Came home with a flying fox which had flown into a powerline, and a rat kangaroo and a possum killed by road traffic. A great many mammals are killed by cars traveling at night on the roads of North Queensland. Monday, Mar. 22 Doing odd jobs and getting together collecting supplies for another bush trip. The arrival of some boxes which George left behind in Rockhampton upon the outbreak of the railway strike has eased the situation in mammal collecting supplies. The one newspaper office in town was unable to supply me with any old newspapers for drying plants, but sold me, at fourpence a pound, some "white waste" from the printing press, which I have to fold to size. Choice of our next collecting locality lies between the Bellenden Ker Range, which is a national park and closed to us for zoological collecting, and the headwaters of the Cloezy River, which George and I will inquire into tomorrow on a trip with Stephens. Wired V. Grenning, Director of Forests, for permission to collect mammals and insects in the Bellenden Ker National Park, and telegraphed Arthur Bell, Under Secretary, Dept. of Agriculture and Stock, asking him to support the application. Geoff suggests, and George supports the idea, that two of us (George and Van) fly to Thursday Island and start work on the tip of the Peninsula with what gear there is here. Am not in favor. Such a move would mean sampling for mammals rather than collecting, with the small quantity of equipment and supplies available. And it would unbalance the whole expedition. Tuesday, Mar. 23 The Townsville wharf lumpers commenced unloading the Time this morning. From inquiries made by me of Howard Smith & Co., and of Burns Philp, this morning, and by Geoff during the day, the situation seems to be: The Townsville cargo on the Time is expected to be unloaded by tomorrow night. Bunker coal is waiting on the wharf in trucks and there will be no difficulty about loading it on the ship. Four crew members were discharged yesterday for alleged "subversive activities." There may be difficulty in making up crew, and anyhow, with the Easter holidays in the offing, the ship is not expected to leave Townsville for Cairns before next Tuesday. There is no reply to my inquiry of Burns Philp as to whether the wharfies in Townsville will be willing to unload our cargo there if it is accessible on the ship - (Burns Philp's Dupain, not wishing to get his firm into the position of asking favors of the strike committee, or of incurring the strikers' displeasure, is against our trying to get our cargo unloaded and brought on to Cairns by rail or road). The District Superintendent of Railways (McLaughlin) is not optimistic re quick delivery of freight from Townsville; railway men expected to act up further there. About the only chance of getting our cargo from Townsville would be by motor truck. The situation is futile, to say the least of it. George and I, with Ern Stephens, left town about 10 am on a visit to Myola and Koah, and returned after 6 pm. Looking into possibilities for a collecting camp, to be occupied over Easter, at Speewah, on the upper Clohesy River, on the west slope of the Dividing Range about west of Cairns. Speewah, the property of George Vievers, who owns extensive timber and cattle lands. The large "Striped Marsupial Cat," presumed to be the beast often called the "Marsupial Tiger", and unknown to science, is said to be "common" there.